At the start of the year, Colleen Tendall spent days begging businesses to give her special needs students a chance to learn job skills.
She wasn t even requesting her students be paid, the Van Meter high school special education teacher said. All she wanted was a place where her students could gain practical work experience for a few hours two days a week.
For the last few years, the students in her Special Education Functional Program had been working at their school s concession stand serving coffee and hot chocolate to students using a donated Casey s cappuccino machine. They would charge students $1 for a hot drink, put the lids on the cups and learn how to manage the money.